


Memory Card

by Bees_forever



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Children, Gen, Grace's POV, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Selectively Mute Vanya (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22908022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bees_forever/pseuds/Bees_forever
Summary: Grace's memories don't work like the memories of humans and she doesn't have any power over them.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Memory Card

Grace’s memories don’t work like memories of humans.   
She just saves things that seem important to her on the memory card that is her brain.  
Sometimes Sir Reginald will delete such a video. She doesn’t know why.   
There are things she doesn’t want him to take from her.   
Memories that are too precious.   
Things about her children. 

Meeting them is such a thing. She has videos of that she can play in her head.   
Little Vanya - only number seven back then- sure of herself and her powers but not speaking yet, making her fly through the room.   
How those things changed. 

The others she met that same day playing with their nannies in the garden. 

The nannies made faces at her when she came in holding Vanya’s tiny hand and she caught the audio of one of them saying:   
“Let’s see how long that one holds.” 

  
Another one clapped her hands.   
“Children. Say hello to Seven’s new nanny.” 

  
Six pairs of eyes were then staring at her. 

“Hello,” not-yet-Luther said shyly and waved his little hand, he was already eager to follow any order he got. 

“What’s your name?” the boy she’d name Klaus a few years later asked with hunger in his voice.  
She didn’t detect that yet though. 

Now she understands how interested the children were in names before they got ones of their own. How jealous they were that other people had the privilege of being called by a name. How “What’s your name?” was the most important question to ask strangers. 

“My name is Grace,” she said and smiled. “Number Seven why don’t you go and play with your siblings?” 

The girl was glad to let go off her hand and ran towards her sister who scowled at her.   
“You always get new ones,” she whispered to the other girl while their brothers had already started a discussion about the name Grace and if it would be a fitting name for them. 

She smiled the smile Reginald Hargreeves programmed into her.  
Grace plays that video over and over while she is alone and has nothing to do. 

* * *

The last child she had to take care of was Luther and he’s been send to the moon.   
She went to say goodbye to him before he went but he hadn’t talked much since the accident and he wasn’t talking then.   
If she was human she’d think of this as a sad memory. But she isn’t and she doesn’t think. 

  
Nevertheless whenever she cleans Luther’s room it’s not that memory she tries to look at. It’s a video of eight year old Luther - the names still so new that the children repeated them over and over again to themselves whenever they thought no one could hear them - holding a newspaper clipping and explaining everything about the Cassini-Huygens mission he had just read.   
“They gonna look at the moons of Saturn, Mom!” he explained eyes big. “We couldn’t send humans cause it’s too far away and they’d die. So they’re sending… kinda robots. Like you! But I’m not like normal humans! I’m much stronger. So maybe I can go there one day, you know? Maybe you can come with?”   
“That would be wonderful, dear,” she told him and smiled.   
“Yes! They gonna take pictures but it’ll take a while you know. We gotta be patient, Mom. I’ll ask Dad if I can put this over my bed…” he held up the clipping and his eyes went dreamy. “They gonna find so much out there… maybe even aliens!” 

They didn’t find aliens and Luther wasn’t allowed to pin the article over his bed.   
Reginald Hargreeves tolerated his son’s fascination with space as long as it stayed one with the general concept of space as soon as it seemed to get more about specific people or organizations he found it dangerous. Even back then Luther was the most easy to control and his father did not want to lose what he had in him. 

The Cassini-Huygens mission ended successfully in 2017 two years since Luther was sent to the one moon of earth.   
Grace found out when she threw away Pogo’s old newspaper. For some reason she couldn’t explain with her program took she the article with the bright wonderful picture of Titan and cut it out hiding it in the same closet she stored her clothes in.   
Maybe Luther would like to read it after he returns.  
Maybe as an adult he could put something over his bed. 

  
  


* * *

There might be an issue with her programm. She isn’t sure. 

She should tell Sir Reginald about it. But she’s also unsure if she wants him to fix it.   
She cleans the rooms in order. Has always cleaned the rooms of her children in order.   
But it used to be one through seven now it’s from the last to leave to the first to leave and she isn’t sure why. It’s not how things were programmed.   
This order is the right one though.  
  
  


  
After Luther’s room comes Klaus’ and that room is far more challenging than his brother’s well kept one. 

Klaus always had rules about her cleaning. Was always hiding something.   
There were “Don’t open this drawer”s uttered even before he started spiralling.   
First he was hiding innocent things. A stone that glittered slightly if you held it into the light, feathers of a pigeon, buttons, a bottle of perfume he must have stolen from his old nanny and tiny stuffed animals.   
Then it got more sinister.   
Painkillers from the infirmary, bottles with clear liquid that she detected to be vodka and that he tried to hide under trash in his bin before he stopped caring all together… then came needles, bags filled with crystals or white pulver, tiny herbs dried up and pressed into a mint box and lots and lots of pills in various creative hiding spots. 

Grace can play the video of his first overdose anytime she walks by the spot he was laying on that time when Ben ran to get her. His door was broken down by Luther and all the siblings surrounded him shouting different instructions.   
Later Diego confessed to her that they had all already expected this to happen one way or another. That they individually had tried to be prepared for the moment their brother would go too far but that none of them had been when it actually came, that in the end they all were overwhelmed with it.   
She told him it wasn’t their fault. They were only fourteen. They couldn’t safe their brother from himself. 

  
Looking at that video of her boy on the ground face ashen falling away from his sibling’s worried yelling always seems like too much and she plays another one. Klaus at six: wild curly hair hanging in his face, his grin full of tooth gaps, hands sticky and eyes glittering happy.   
She had just handed him a plate with cookies to give to his siblings and Klaus - still only number four then - who had never been given much responsibility in the house was probably the proudest child in the whole mansion that day.   
He ended up running around with the plate all day long offering a cookie to every person that came his way and wouldn’t take no for an answer.   
And when he returned to her with the empty plate eyes huge at the realization that he’d forgotten to take a cookie for himself she had one for him left after all and he was once again happy. He was that kind of child. Easy to please.   
But as he got older it had to be more and more and more…   
  
  


* * *

  
  
The position of Vanya’s room changed and maybe that’s the reason for the issues with her programming.   
But Vanya’s room was put far away from her sibling’s rooms long before she started to notice this change in her programmed in order. 

Reginald Hargreeves ordered the girl to move away to another room suddenly, without an explanation and she just stared at him.   
It might have been how close she, Number Five and Ben got suddenly when they hit their teens, the two boys listening to her music while reading or doing their studies.   
Or maybe it was the stubborn, sometimes angry solidarity she and Allison made as soon as they realised that they were the only two girls in a bunch of boys and that consisted first of whispering “Yey, sisters!” and giggling when seeing each other and then as they aged of the tales of being the only girl in an all boys team and unfair questions asked in interviews or that book Margaret Atwood had written and the general idea of feminism. 

Maybe it was both that led Sir Reginald to his decision, maybe it was neither he surely never told the robot cast with raising his adopted children and cleaning the house.   
But one day Vanya had to change her room next to Klaus’ for one far away from the others that was bigger, yes but still so far away she’d only see her siblings when they were at dinner. 

“Why can’t I stay with the others?” the young girl asked her eyes filling with tears because she understood very well what this would mean.   
“It’s a nice room,” Grace said instead of answering her question. “You’ll have a good sound in here for your music.”   
Vanya turned around her eyes suddenly filling with anger.   
“Dear, remember, your nerves.”   
The defiant look still on her face she took out the bottle with pills shaking one into her hand and taking it, smoothly, quick.   
A gesture so practiced she could have done it in her sleep. 

  
Before the pills Vanya - little number Seven - was altogether a different child.   
Much like her brother back then still number two she wouldn’t use words to express herself but unlike him it wasn’t because of any speech impediment at least as far as anyone knew. She just didn’t want to. And much like her sister, back then she got what she wanted. And despite lacking the words to communicate she was a quiet expressive child, her siblings normally understood her quiet well. 

Maybe it is because she was the first child Grace was charged with looking after but Grace can never pick one video from those early days with Vanya to play while she cleans her new (it’s still new even after years) room.   
One day it will be one of the girl hiding from her after what happened during breakfast, one day it will be one of them playing memory or solving a jigsaw puzzle together. She wishes things could have been different for them.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
If Grace had it in her to pick a favourite child it would have been Diego.   
In the eyes of his siblings he truly was her favourite child. 

It might have been her programm which Sir Reginald Hargreeves adjusted after the last nanny left that made her want to care for him especially.   
That shy small boy with his big, sad eyes was still right under the layers of the stoic young man that stood before her the day he left. 

“G-go-g-...”   
“Remember what we worked on, dear, picture the word in your mind,” she told him looking up from her needle work.   
He swallowed heavily.   
“G-goodbye, M-m-mom.”   
“Where are you going, my darling?”   
“I don’t know. A-away from here…”   
“Did you and Luther have another fight?” There was yelling before.   
“No… yes… kind of… I need to l-leave.”   
And that was it, Diego left with a backpack full with his belongings.   
Later she found that he had taken the embroidery with his name with him. She made seven of them when she gave them their names. For each of her children one even for number Five who didn’t want a name for himself.  
Diego was the only one who kept it for ten years.

  
When he got it he was smiling up to her wide eyed.   
Luther had just received his and was busy trying out his brand-new name. 

“Di-e-go,” he read out and looked up at her with big eyes. “Th-that’s my nuh-n-name?”   
“Yes, you’re Diego.”   
“I’m D-Diego,” the boy breathed out. “No m-more nuh-number two.”   
“Do you like it?” she asked.   
“Yes, I luh-love it,” he said and hugged her suddenly. “You’re the b-best Mom. I love you.” 

He was so easy to take care of so hungry for the littlest piece of affection, hunting for love and she… she gave what she had.  
But she knew it was all artificial like she was herself. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
Before Diego it was Allison who left them. 

Big self-assured smile on her face and the announcement that she was going to be a star in Hollywood on her lips. 

There were no fights when she left, nor quietly suppressed emotions at least on her side.   
They still had missions at that point but they were more spare than they used to be and Allison simply thought that she was better off in Hollywood. 

Grace sees that self-assured young woman who leaves them and switches to a video of Allison less self-assured.   
Shortly after the aborted Goodnight, Allison had come down to her again eyes red from crying. 

“Honey,” Grace said. “It’s time for bed, come on…”   
Allison looked up at her. “Why can’t he once have time for us? Why doesn’t he care?”   
Grace put a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, darling, your father was just very busy.”   
“But he always is, Mom!” Allison told her desperation in her voice. “We’re never good enough.   
“I know. He’s a busy man, Allison…” she said.   
“He’s an ass!”   
“Now, dear that is no way to speak!” Grace scolded and Allison looked down.   
“Sorry, Mom but it’s not fair!”   
“How about I make you a hot milk and some cookies and you get to bed, hm? It’ll look different tomorrow,” she said running her programm.   
“Hot milk and cookies won’t fix this, Mom!”   
“But you’ll sleep well, darling,” she tried again.   
“Ugh,” Allison made and rolled her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you?”   
“Maybe you can explain it to me, dear?”   
She looked up at her then and sighed deeply. “No it’s fine, Mom… I’m sorry. I forget you’re just a robot. I’ll take the hot milk after all, yes?”   
“And cookies?”   
“Okay, yes, and cookies,” Allison’s smile was tight and she looked at the ground. “Mom?”   
“Yes, dear?”   
“If I’m a parent… I’ll spend my time with the kid. And I’ll make the Dad spend just as much time. I’ll make sure… I’ll make sure my child is the happiest.”   
“I’m sure you’ll be a great mother, Allison dear,” Grace said and patted her shoulder.   
Allison nodded then thinking for a moment. “I hope so,” she said and looked away. “I hope I’m more like you than him.” 

Grace smiled at her and went to get the milk ready. 

When Allison got Claire she send a letter with pictures for all of them. There was even one for her. A picture of a tiny baby girl in her mother’s arm. Grace put it in her closet.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
Death in theory is a very easy concept to understand.   
Programmed into her system is following definition: “The permanent end of life in an organism.”   
It was one of many definitions she had ready whenever one of the children came to her with a question.

  
But that definition was of no use when death happened to her own child.   
Ben died and Grace had no program to fall back to.   
For a while she just made do with the program she had until Diego came to her, grabbing her shoulders, tears in his eyes begging for her to stop putting up a plate for Ben at dinner, to stop washing his clothes, to stop acting like he was still there when he wasn’t and she had to go to Sir Reginald addressing that and asking to have her program changed. Knowing he’d delete something on her memory card just because it was convenient for him. 

  
He deleted a lot of videos of Ben and maybe that was for the better.   
Maybe it was the videos that made her keep putting up a plate for him like she hadn’t lost him. The second child she lost. 

There remain some videos of him though. 

  
Ben - twelve years old wearing Luther’s training jacket because he had a bad night and Luther said he can do training without his jacket anyway he wasn’t cold, something Grace detected as a lie but didn’t say anything about.

Ben looked out of the window into the yard where his siblings were doing training, pressing the hot water bottle she gave him tightly onto his stomach.   
“How’s your stomach, dear?”   
“Better. The hot water helps,” he mumbled and looked away.   
“That’s great, sweetheart. I’ve made tea to settle it down even more,” she told him and he nodded and smiled.   
“Thanks, Mom,” he said.   
She put a hand onto his small shoulder and smiled. “Do you want to train with your siblings?”   
“Not really… I don’t… I don’t really know what I want right now... “ he looked at her for a moment twisting the sleeve of the too big jacket in his hand “Mom? Do you know why Dad really made us have these tattoos?” he asked then rubbing his wrist with the two week old ink on it.   
“He told you. It’s to represent all of your teamspirit,” she told him.   
“It reminds me of cattle…” he mumbled   
“What do you mean, dear?”   
“Nothing,” he said and looked up at her. “Sorry, Mom. Thanks for the tea. You’re the best.”   
On her right foot there’s his name and the logo that dreaded umbrella. She doesn’t associate it with cattle but with mass production.   
  
  


* * *

  
  
Number Five was by far the most independent of her children right from the start.   
There was no tears needing to be dried with him nor skinned knees needing a band-aid or even late night demands for snacks or water.  


No, number Five did everything or most things for himself.   
He bandaged his scrapes himself, made his own snacks, got his water himself and never in a million years would he let anyone witness his crying, at least not a person he perceived as an adult. 

  
There was only one time number Five searched out her comfort and that was when all of the children were down with chickenpox when they were five years old. 

He had it the worst was curled up in his bed itchy rash all over his tiny feverish body, too weak to do any of his spacial jumps his hair standing up in different directions looking up at her when she brought him soup. 

“I want a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich,” he said and rubbed at his sleepy eyes.   
“The soup will be easy on your stomach, dear,” she told him and smiled and Five gave a grunt.   
“Seven is scared of you,” he gave back bluntly.   
Grace was still standing in the room with his soup. “Oh, you know, we had a rough start at first. But I think she’s warming up to me now,” she said and smiled, sitting down on the edge of his bed.   
“Hm... “ Number Five made and looked at her. “Are you gonna be the nanny for all of us? Now that Dad made ours go away?”   
“Well… I think your father wants me to take care of you all at the very least.”   
“Hm,” he made again and sighed sitting up a little and rubbing at his rash.   
“Oh, dear, don’t scratch it,” she told him and took his small hand in hers.   
“You’re cold,” he complained and scowled at her.   
“I can warm up for you,” she told him and activated the heater in her hand.  
He looked at her with big eyes. “That’s cool,” he whispered and held onto her hand a little longer. “Warm…”   
“Yes,” she agreed and smiled. “Now, how about you eat your soup, darling? It’ll be good for you.”   
“Fine,” the boy said and shrugged before looking up at her again now just the tiniest bit sheepish. “Can you stay for a bit?”   
“Alright, dear.”   
“Thanks,” he said and started to eat his soup. 

“You know… I really liked my nanny but you’re alright too…” he mumbled when he had finished and layed back in bed.   
She smiled. “I’m glad.”   
“Hmh… I don’t think I’ll call you ‘nanny’ though.”   
“You can just keep calling me Grace.”   
“Okay.”   
  
  


* * *

  
  
She doesn’t have a video left of the day she became Mom.   
It must have been one of the ones he deleted with so many others.   
She doesn’t know if it’s significant but a real mother would remember such a day.   
She looks at her pictures looks the girl right in the eye and wants to ask her if she is a mother too. If her children left her as well. 

And then he plays the video of her first day with the children one last time before loading starts. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a very self-indulged write, I just played up a lot of my headcanons and wrote them all out.  
> And I'm still not done with chicken pox.  
> I still hope someone can take something away from this and it's at least a half-decent one shot. <3


End file.
